I Can Do It!

Wow, I´m just coming off a very profound event. One I hope I can burn into my brain for the rest of my days. My sweet kindergarten boy just read Green Eggs and Ham to me. Only the first half - the whole book would have, could have taken an hour - but he read it. He sounded out each and every word and by God he read. His face was flushed with the thrill of accomplishment - what a feeling. It was new, pure and real.

The only time I can recapture that feeling these days is by successfully assembling Ikea furniture. There´s nothing better than taking on something that´s foreign to you and succeeding. I don´t think it´s difficult for an adult to tap into what the boy did tonight - it´s just feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Now if you´ll excuse me, I have a room to paint!

Beach House Blues

Hi,my name is Anne and I´m addicted to searching for beach houses. "Hi, Anne." Seriously, I have a problem. It all started a few weeks ago when a friend wondered if I might be interested in spending a week at a New Hampshire lake. That didn´t work out, but it did start me thinking about my favorite subject - beach houses. Why the obsession? Is it because I spent nearly every childhood vacation at a campground - I have vague memories of using some sort of makeshift camping toilet that involved a Hefty bag - and want every adult vacation to be on my terms? Is it because it´s a project? Who knows. In my mid-twenties, I organized a crew of friends and acquaintances and rented an oceanfront mansion in the Outer Banks. We lived the dream; I had a bidet in my room. It was May and we barely ventured outside, just hung around in our way-too-luxurious surroundings. One of my closest friends got engaged there - it was fabulous.

Now, when presented with the my first beach house opportunity as a parent, I was thrilled. The hunt started immediately. My goal was to rent a house in the Outer Banks for two families for less than $1000 each. Within two days I had several lists going and was an expert on the best Corolla beaches. Then tragedy struck. The other couple had their hearts set on a particular beach house. My search was over.

But what can a girl to do but move on? I started talking to a few of my friends about going to the beach, received some good response, and went back to work. This time my goal was a house for 4 families for less than $1500 each. My first thought was to find that same fabulous house from 1997. I did and it´s now $13,000 a week! I quickly learned that my new budget of $6,000 didn´t stretch nearly as far as I´d expected - no oceanfront manor for us. I searched for days, and finally decided to switch to the less fancy but closer Sandbridge Beach, VA. I found the perfect house for $20 dollars under budget and then learned that sales tax makes a BIG difference in the beach house business. I went back to the drawing board - and back to OBX - and found on an awesome beach where I can get a big third row house for about $5000, which really squeaks us in just under budget.

I know more about Sandbridge and Outer Banks rentals than anyone should. It´s crazy much work I put into this project. I studied for several hours each day. It consumed me - I would try to sit down and read a book but would just end up back at the computer. I used Google maps to see how far houses were from the beach and Live maps to see an aerial view. I had to find the perfect house - private pool, wifi, hot tub, close to the beach, four master bedroom, beds for four boys and five girls ... and it would be awesome if that house had a pool table and a second fridge ... and it would be even more awesome if it were fabulous.

It looks like I´ll get everything but the fabulousness (there is that place with the indoor pool and movie theater that´s in our price range ... but it´s a mile from the beach) but I´ll make it.

Cruising Target

Now that my son is in kindergarten, there´s a whole new world opening up to me. It hit me when the woman at the Starbucks asked if I wanted “the usual.” I grabbed my usual and it hit me; I´d just crossed a parenting threshold. Shopping was no longer a mad dash to get the birthday present/bathing suit/curtains that I needed before getting the hell out. Now I could really take my time.

And take my time I did. First I recognized a pretty distant acquaintance and stopped for a great, five minute talk. Usually anyone but a good friend would get no more than a rushed hello and a strained two sentence exchange from me, but this little connection with another Mom really gave me a boost. I do have to admit it was a little awkward when we saw each other in another aisle. Do you stand there and talk again or what? How many times do you do that?

But later, as I was circling the bath section for the third time (is a hand towel for a guest room sold in the same section as a regular hand towel? Is there a difference?), I started to see The Army. They were everywhere - probably one in five Target shoppers was in The Army. I was member, I realized, and I was wearing the uniform.

A member of the Target Army has a distinct uniform, depending on the season. In January the standard issue consists of fashionable jeans and a dark puffer jacket or vest, with or without a fur-lined hood. There´s a bohemian sub-genre who dismiss with the puffy coat altogether, but that´s beside the point. The looks under the coat vary from fully put together to Plain Jane. But there´s one truly mandatory accessory - a child. You´ve gotta have a kid with you to be a true Army member.

And like the rest of the Army, I knew my mission - should I accept it - was to cruise Target. I was there for a birthday present, but what else . . . what else. I wonder what´s on clearance; hey, there´s the Method stuff; Valentine´s Day kitchen towels! We wound through the aisles, like ships passing in the night, each on our own quest. We were an army of 21st American women, trying to make sense of our roles as wives and mothers in the modern world. What did it mean? What did it mean!

But we were also a bunch of Starbucks drinking hussies. The line there was as long as the line at Costco on a Saturday afternoon. Anyway, I left Target that today feeling a part of something and with a newfound respect for a woman I wouldn´t have met if I weren´t a mom.

Push The Button

As a general rule, I´m not a fan of those kids´ books with the row of sound buttons. Kids should imagine their noises! The books are monstrosities and when the batteries start dying, these plastic giants start sounding possessed. When the batteries finally do die, the books cannot be read, only used for provoking anger in small children. I´ve never changed a battery in a children´s book. Does anyone? And the books are usually poorly written. There´s a version of Finding Nemo out there that would blow your mind. Finally, the experience of reading one of the books is mind-numbing. You have to read one line of a crappy story then wait patiently while your child fumbles around with six buttons.

But even more deadly is the pop-up sound button picture book. I´m only burdened with a few of these books but, boy, are they challenging. I cringed when my son busted one out for me to read tonight. Then I looked at his sweet little face and decided to suck it up. Bear In The Big Blue House Hide and Seek it was! I daydreamed through the first three pages, and then took notice that - holy crap - my son had the whole thing memorized.

I was immediately filled with love for my boy. It made me realize what a complicated (in a good way) person he´s becoming. I love to think of him absorbed in a book enough to memorize every page. The whole thing made me remember what it was like to be a kid - just awesome. So there you have it; the silver lining in a sound button picture book.

Sidenote: the pop-up form of the sound button book is definitely not the most deadly. That award is reserved for the type in which the picture replaces the word. You´re pressing 20 to 30 buttons a page with those suckers.

The First Post

Here goes, my first foray into the big bad world of the blog. I´ve been reading them long enough; I figure it´s time to get to writing. What should I write about? Life, I guess. I´m a mommy who has issues, is what you need to know. I also have some mommy issues, but more on that later. I plan to write about my issues, from the mundane (Webkinz addiction) to the profane (timed coughing so I can listen to hip hop in the car) and all the junk in between.

So anyway, I´m planning to write here until I don´t feel like doing it anymore or get too caught up in the business of my life. In the meantime I´ll write about my adventures as a wife and mother of two small children, a freelance writer, a friend to many and a master daydreamer. If you stumble on this, I hope you enjoy it.